Mediating Ways

Most of us think about mediation as an intervention to resolve a dispute and if that is happening to you our mediation service service can help out. But mediation skills are not only useful in resolving a dispute. Creativity and innovation are not borne out of sameness but out of difference and diversity. Too often the resulting change leads to disruptive conflict. But that need not be the way. If we accept conflict as the normal symptom of complex reality then using the skills of mediation should be the normal response and not just something we reach for in extremis - it is something for all of us to use in the course of our daily work. This is the alternative viewpoint we have branded as mediating ways. Most leaders today have heard of, and practice, the coaching style of managment. If, in your work, diversity and difference are the normal state of things then you will want them to contribute innovation and creativity as part of healthy organisational life. In our paradigm mediating ways is not just re- ordering the disordered but it is part and parcel of a positive management and leadership culture which is custom-made for today’s fast changing business environment. The mediating way in management is a true complement to the coaching style of management. We can support organisations to develop individuals and teams in the way in which conflict can be recognised, managed and used creatively. These use the following approaches: Conflict Coaching Conflict Styles Executive Coaching Team Coaching MBTI - Personality Profiles

Mediating Ways

For his Masters in Mediation and Conflict Resolution Robin wrote a dissertation, Mediating Ways, about a study of organisations which had trained staff in mediation. The bodies while positive about the benefits of mediation training and its cultural influences on their work were using it more as their style of working than in any increase in formal mediations they carried out. The study identified the benefits as: business as usual, strategic focus and work culture. Robin’s proposition is that if we limit mediation’s role to dispute resolution as if conflict is pathology, we are missing a trick. It is in the complex realities of diversity in organisational life that mediation will find a greater role. Mediating ways has the potential to add value by working in the grain of daily interactions and business culture. A narrow focus on dispute resolution would limit mediation’s potential. As a way to develop relationships, work practices and change management mediating ways can become a management style to complement the coaching style.

Mediating Ways - the story

Interested in exploring Robin’s ideas on mediating ways? Please click here for a copy of his paper.